This volume explores academic households in early modern (c. sixteenth- to eighteenth-century) Northern Europe, examining changing dynamics of family and gender.
During the Middle Ages, Christian scholars were expected to spend their lives unwed and instead focus on educating the young. However, a gradual easing of prohibitions against the marriage of scholars began in different areas of Europe in the late fourteenth century. By the end of the sixteenth century, most professors were men with families and establishing their own households. This was especially the case in the German-speaking Protestant areas of Europe and the Swedish realm from the first half of the seventeenth century. The contributors of this volume concentrate on universities that took on the new idealised understanding of professors and other members of academic communities as married men. They analyse how professors and other members of the academic communities viewed family and household, what academic family life was like, and how the members of the academic community utilised family and the household for (academic) self-fashioning and building networks. Furthermore, they pay special attention to the wives and widows of professors and other academics and discuss the agency of these women.
This book is an excellent resource for students and professional readers alike who are interested in the histories of early modern universities, families, and gender.
This volume explores academic households in early modern (c. sixteenth- to eighteenth-century) Northern Europe, examining changing dynamics of family and gender.
1. Academic Households and Families in Early Modern Northern Europe: An
Introduction Part 1: Family Ideals and Practices
2. Dissertations on Family
and Marriage in the Seventeenth-Century Swedish Realm
3. Martin Luthers
Emotional Practices and Family Life in the Sixteenth-Century Wittenberg
4.
The Multifaceted Agency of Professors Wives in the Seventeenth-Century Turku
5. The Agency of Lecturers Widows in the Late Seventeenth-Century Diocese of
Vyborg Part 2: Family Networks
6. Transfer and Management of Property in
Marburg Professors Families in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
7.
Family Networks of Scholarly Households in Turku during the turn of the
Eighteenth-Century
8. Godparenthood in Professorial Households in the
Eighteenth-Century Uppsala Part 3: Written and Material Self-Fashioning
9.
Representing Family Relations through Occasional Poetry in
Seventeenth-Century Turku
10. Identity and Materiality in the Linnaeus
Household in the Eighteenth-Century Uppsala
11. Objectified Cultural Capital
and Self-fashioning in the Ekerman-Aurivillius Professorial Dynasty in
Uppsala during the turn of the Nineteenth-Century
Mari Välimäki is an Associate Professor (title of Docent) at the University of Turku, Finland, and has led the project The Professors Household The Royal Academy of Turku as a Family Network in the 17th Century at Tampere University, Finland (20222025). Her research interests include the histories of universities, family, and gender in early modern Northern Europe.
